


Untitled

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Alcohol, Depression, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic, Makeup, Other, Smoking, femme!jesse, trans!jesse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He caught her watching him over her wine glass, and then her wine glass was on the table and she’d got her chin cupped in her palm as she watched him fill the bucket with steaming water, watched him pour the citrus scented soap in – “Add a little more,” she said and so he did with a yes ma’am and then he mopped for real now and he mopped around her feet, bare with only just the nylon footies because she always kicked her shoes off when she got in now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kat for betaing this for me, and assuring me that I was not woobifying Jesse. 
> 
> Warnings for: vague references to depression, alcohol content, smoking content. I headcanon Jesse as trans so there is also an undercurrent of jesse's anxieties wrt underlying gender essentialism and also cissexism which isn't really addressed directly in the story itself but I do hope I've written it in such a way as it's clear that the story is certainly not condoning or participating in that sort of ish.

Mr White started asking him to come over more often. It was mostly okay, especially when Mrs White wasn’t there because when she was, there was this, this feeling that gave him goosebumps and made him want to stand up and say that it was okay, he was just going, but if he did he knew that Mr White would just tell him to stay anyway, that it was okay even though Mrs White disappeared farther behind her eyes, deeper in her glass of wine.

There’d be this silence too, silence more uncomfortable than accidentally eating too much--there wasn't much danger of that happening in the White house though because he was always too anxious to get out of there to have more than one serving (unless he was super hungry, then he’d take time to eat a second plate fast enough to get gone, but not obvious enough for Mr White to tell him to slow it down, son).

But lately Mr White had been sending him over there and saying that he’d be delayed. At first it was just a five or ten minutes. Then it was thirty. Then an hour. Then over an hour while he hung around the house, waiting and feeling out of place.

One time, Jesse had waited an hour and a half for Mr White. At first, he’d just stood, hands in his pockets, feet shuffling awkwardly and uselessly.

Tried not to listen to Mrs White in the master bedroom, door clicked shut. Toilet flushing then faucet running. Something like cloth against cloth like she was folding herself into bed even though it was only late afternoon.

Jesse remembered when he’d felt like that, when he’d just wanted to sleep until he died.

Sometimes, he still felt like that.

The more times this happened, Jesse found other ways to occupy himself. Like cleaning the dirty dishes that seemed to be always piled up neat in the sink.

He even found a pair of yellow gloves that he put on so that he could scrub scrub scrub the broiler pan and he wouldn’t feel like he was crawling out of his own skin from the soap afterwards.

It kept his fingers occupied since Mr White didn’t like it when people smoked in his house.

It left a dirty yellow film everywhere, Jesse knew, had cleaned it up before that one time when he scrubbed the graffiti off the walls: blue and red and yellow stained cloths stinking and rubbing his skin raw.

Then Mrs White started coming out. She’d refill her wine glass, bottle neck toasting the glass lip, and say, “You missed a spot.”

Where? There.

Usually, it was just soap scum.

Then, one day, after he’d wrung out the yellow sponges so they wouldn’t stink, she said, as she sat on her high backed kitchen chair, legs crossed at the knee, “The floor looks a bit dirty.” She licked her lips, took a sip of wine, leaving a pale pink smudge behind—“I think my husband forgets to wipe the mud off his boots.”

“That was probably me, Mrs White. Sorry.”

“Mop and bucket are in the cupboard there.” She gestured with her glass. “You should probably clean it up before -- Mr. White -- sees.”

“Yes, Mrs White,” he mumbled.

He caught her watching him over her wine glass, and then her wine glass was on the table and she’d got her chin cupped in her palm as she watched him fill the bucket with steaming water, watched him pour the citrus scented soap in – “Add a little more,” she said and so he did with a yes ma’am and then he mopped for real now and he mopped around her feet, bare with only just the nylon footies because she always kicked her shoes off when she got in now.

He finished just as they heard Mr White’s car gun into the driveway, Mr White probably pushing the speed limit just to hear his engine sing, just because he could, and her face shuttered close, and she smelled the wine before picking it up by the bottle’s neck. “Kitchen looks nice,” she said, and then she was gone, disappearing behind a slammed door leaving Jesse with his cheeks flushed and him trying to spit the words out thanks or no problem or something, anything.

It went like that. First, he washed the dishes. It seemed that there were always a little more than the last time. When he started washing the last slippery butter knife, she clunked down her wine glass beside him. He washed the purple ring from the bottom, the pale pink from the lip, then put it on the rack to be rubbed dry and put away with the other dishes.

When everything was safely put away, she took it out again, and refilled it with wine. She never asked him if he wanted any and that was fine with him because he'd rather a cold beer but she’d never take her eyes off him as she poured, as she held it under her nose, breathed in deep before taking a small sip.

“You’re here a lot, Mr. Pinkman,” she said, lingering over the honorific like she was tasting it. “I see you everywhere.” She went to the living room, stood in the center of it, then leaned towards the chair he always sat in, waiting for Mr White to show. Her finger came away dirty with dust, and she shook her head, tutted at it. “What would Mr. White say if he should see the state of this house?”

She looked at him, head tilted as if she was waiting for him to say something, and, to his surprise, he actually did have something to say. It wasn’t fuck your chores like he’d blown off every other household assignment to him, but: “What do you want me to do, Mrs White?”

She told him to dust. Wipe first, then lemon scented Pledge after. Then wipe again. Fold the cloth in four quarters and unfold just so so that every side was used and nothing wasted and when he slid next to Mr White when he finally showed up in his shiny new car, he said, “What is that smell?” and Jesse was like “Dude, it’s fucking lemons” like it wasn’t rocket science.

“What is that, perfume or something?” and then he waved his hand, sighed impatiently. “Never mind that. Now listen, Jesse—“

While they waited on the other days, Mrs White had him vacuum, had him help fold Mr White’s laundry (and it was hard not to laugh at his tighty-whities because it’s still Mr White, right? Mr White who’d cooked meth and killed for their territories in those tighty whities, and Mrs White had had to ask him if he was okay before he’d been able to keep folding like nothing was wrong or fucked up).

Once, she’d even had him mow the lawn.

When he had done with that last, arms sore from pushing through the long weeds, hands smelling vaguely of gasoline, lit cigarette hanging from his lips because goddamn he deserved it, shirt off because the sun was hot, so, so, so, hot, and he was sprawled on their porch steps, she opened the door behind him.

He scrambled to his feet, but she said, “Don’t bother.”

“Yes, ma’am,” as he sat himself down again, cigarette burning a pillar of ash as sweat slid down his back.

She handed him a tall glass of lemonade, chunks of ice melting fast, glass already slick and wet. “Thank you, Mrs White.” He took his cigarette, and she held out her hand, so he gave it to her instead.

“You can—if you want,” he said then gulped down the lemonade fast to cool the heat rushing up his neck.

She dragged deep, blew it out hard like she was born doing this, like she’d step from the black and white of a noire film into a Technicolor suburban home.

There was a smudge of pink where her mouth had been when she handed it back, and Jesse flinched because sometimes he still found stale old cigarette butts rimmed with pink and it hurt, it hurt every time. He sucked deep, tasted the faint strawberry glaze of her gloss.

“You like, Mr. Pinkman?” Mrs White asked.

He choked on his smoke because was she talking about the lemonade or the other thing.

“It’s from a can,” she said. “Not made from scratch.”

His mother would have made it from fresh lemons and put the yellow rinds in the compost. “That’s okay, Mrs White. It’s the best thing, on a day like this.”

Then there were some days, though, where Mrs White didn’t come out, so Jesse did what he thought needed to be done, relieved when he saw that there were dishes (wine glass stained red this time, and Jesse wondered what that one tasted like, wondered if it was cherry or cough syrup or something else), relieved when he wiped his finger on a shelf and it came away dirty, relieved when the trash still needed to be taken out.

Not so relieved when Mr White texted him – Jesse, I forgot my watch. It’s in the master bathroom. Make sure you have it when I come by.

“Oh Jesus fuck,” he whispered because Mrs White was still locked up in her bedroom, in the master bedroom, tighter than a Disney princess.

He knocked, hesitantly. “Mrs White?” he called.

And waited.

No answer.

Mr White called it the silent treatment, or the cold shoulder because you know how frigid wives could be.

Jesse squeezed his eyes. Knocked again. “Mrs White?”

Then, thin and tired, “What?”

He tried to explain, but before he even barely just got out the words Mr White, she’d flung the door open. “Whatever he wants, right?”

There wasn’t really anything to say to that, so Jesse just said, “Yeah, I guess.” He went to the bathroom, found the watch. It was his, the one he’d given him, after that one time he’d thought Mr White’d finally done the unforgiveable thing but he’d been wrong, he’d always been wrong, not clever enough to see through to the end, to see through the games and the lies, not like Mr White who could see it all, see each aspect of their lives like it was a chemical, like he knew how each bond formed to create the exact right reaction.

He stared at the watch face. Tried to see like Mr White did, tried to put his mind to it like Mr White – just apply yourself, son you can do it if you try hard enough before he’d inevitably roll his eyes and turn away (but maybe, that was happening less frequently? It was hard to tell, they’d been through so much shit and back together).

He curled his fingers around the watch, then polished the face of it with his shirt because of course Mr White wouldn’t want fingerprints all over it. Turned, then jerked back when he saw Mrs White there leaning against the door.

“Hey, that’s not cool, scaring people like that,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot, uncoiling his muscles from red alert, arms stiff and useless and taking too much room at his sides, behind his back, across his front, no good place for his arms.

She almost laughed, took a sip of wine. “Well you’d be one to know wouldn’t you?”

Jesse tried to square his shoulders, jutted his chin a little. “Well I guess I would, huh.” He folded his hands behind his back so he could press them hard against his spine.

“He never lets that thing out of his sight,” she said.

Jesse smiled at that because he’d done good, chosen wisely as they say. Then the smile slipped because if he never let it out of his sight, if he never—then he must have meant for him to be here, right now, a test or something like he was still some kid in high school, and the bathroom walls never felt so close.

“Mrs White, I’m—“

She held up a finger, and he stopped. Turned away until his eyes fell on the rest of the counter cluttered with items that had surrounded the watch. Mascara and eye shadow and lipgloss—there was that one, that red one he’d seen earlier on the glass,

Mrs White must have seen him eying it because she said, “Do you like it?”

“It’s nice,” he said. “How does this one taste?”

Her arm reached out to him, no beyond him, towards the tube. “Do you want to find out?”

Guilt and shame like when he was a fucking teenager filled his jeans and he kept his body turned away from her, pressed tight against the counter, hoping and hoping that she wouldn’t notice, that if she did notice she wouldn’t tell Mr White but Mr White would understand, right?

“Jesse?”

His head jerked up. “What?”

She’d unscrewed the tube when he hadn’t been looking, too busy staring at his clenched fist gripping the counter and not anything else. “Did you want to find out?” she said again.

“Mrs White, I don’t—I don’t think we—I think—“

He was relieved when she almost smiled. “Mr. Pinkman, perhaps you should get your mind out of the gutter. Are we clear on that?”

He sank down onto the closed toilet. “Yes, ma’am.”

She unscrewed the cap. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Then, “This doesn’t mean anything, like I’m some girly-girl!” he said, sharply aware of how he filled the small space.

“Well, it’s a good thing that this is just a tube of lipstick and only means what you want it to.” She lifted his chin with her hand. “Purse gently,” she said, like this, and she showed him with her lips, and he mimicked her until she said, “There, that’s good. Hold still.” And he didn’t breathe until she said, “Okay.”

She guided his gaze toward the mirror, hand on his chin. His lips were red, and they tasted like cherries.

“You like?”

He couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, and he wasn’t sure he could say yeah because what would Mr White say if he saw? What would his parents say?

“What do you say?” Mrs White said again.

He jerked his head back from her palm. “What am I, like four or something?”

“We need to be clear with each other. So what do you say?” she said again. “Yes or no?”

Then, quiet-like, “Yes, ma’am.”

She tipped his head back again. “Have you ever worn anything else? Mascara? Blush?”

He saw her own mascara flaking from when she’d applied it before work, saw the faded blue of her eye shadow. The red on her cheek.

“No, ma’am.”

She smoothed her thumb along the edge of his jaw, her eyes not staying focused on his but looking at him from every which angle—in light, out of light, focused like when she first had started watching him over her glass of wine, but this time without sliding away, like he was the only thing she wanted to look at, like she was really seeing something in him beyond Mr White’s delinquent partner in crime. What was it? What did she see?

Did she see what Mr White saw?

“Do you want to?” she said. “Do you want to wear more?”

“Yes ma’m,” he whispered. Then, stronger. “I want to wear what you wear.”

“It would clash with your skin,” she said. “Trust me.”

“No shit,” he said, hoping he imagined the faint tremor of his voice over the vowels, wondering if the t sound had come out harder because of it. He heard Mr White’s voice in his ear, always overcompensating for something, eh Jesse? He swallowed hard, his chin still heavy in her palm.

She pulled her hand away. “You need to trust me if this is going to work.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, waited for her to say something, anything. “Yeah, fine, whatever man.” He forced himself to look into her eyes. “I trust you.”

She bent low over the counter, compared different brands of eyeliner and mascara, and said, “Good. Let’s get started.”

When she said to open his eyes and to glance up, he did. The wand felt close, too close, like she was gonna jab it with him or something, but she never did.

He held perfectly still like she asked him too when she dragged black linger down one lid, up the other. “I’ve never been able to pull off the winged eye look,” Mrs White said, “but I think you’ll be able to.”

Maybe he could do that. He didn’t edge a glance of himself in the mirror because she told him not to, not that it mattered when she told him to close his eyes so she could powder them with dark blue and black.

“Like bruises?” he said, hoping for a laugh.

But Mrs White only said, “Not remotely like.”

And his eyes stung, and it was from the makeup he was sure, but he didn’t say anything because he wanted to see, wanted to see what she saw.

Finally, after a light dusting of blush, she said, “Now squeeze your eyes shut one last time.”

And he did. He felt her turn him and, her breath so close to his ear, she said, “Open.”

He thought he’d look silly. He thought he’d look ridiculous. He thought, maybe, she might have been having a joke at his expense, but hiding it close under something like sincerity.

But it wasn’t anything like that. He wasn’t like that. She wasn’t like that either, with her hands on her shoulders, his back pressed against her front hard enough he could feel the shudder of her breath.

“I look—“ Jesse started to say, before faltering.

“Good,” Mrs White said, soft.

“Yeah.” He would have bowed his head, but Mrs White’s hand had moved to his jaw, playing with the way the light fell across his face. “Mrs White,” he said, without knowing why, “I’m the bad guy.”

“I know,” she said. “I know what you’ve done. And I can imagine the rest. And I know why you are here, and I know why Mr White sends you here, into this room, to remind me of my place.”

It made sense now, said like that. “Oh,” he said. Why hadn’t he seen that? Or had he seen that and just put it away somewhere, like where he put the other bad things they had done together,

Distantly, faintly, they heard the gunning of Mr White’s engine. “Shit! I’ve gotta—“ he rubbed his hand across his face and it came back black and blue and red.

Mrs White put her hand on his chest. “Stop.” And he did, trembling under her before she tore off some toilet paper and wet them, wiping his face until it was all cleaned off, until Mr White started blaring his horn, come Jesse come.

He rushed from his place on the toilet seat, stopping up tight when she said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” and there she was, standing framed in the hallway, Mr White’s silver watch hanging from her fingers.

“Fuck! Thank you, Mrs White, thank you.”

Then he was out the door, wrenching open the passenger side, and shoving himself into the seat.

“What took you so long?” Mr White asked.

“I—“ Jesse began.

Mr. White talked over him. “Is that red—you got there?” And he pointed at his own mouth.

Jesse flipped down the viser, looked at the streak of red in the crease of his lips.

“Ah, I see,” Mr White said, knowingly as he started he engine. “You had some of the cherry pie that Skyler made. I’m so glad she’s baking again, I never really liked it when she came home with that store bought crap.”

Jesse hadn’t even known there was pie in the fridge. He kind of wished he had—wished there had been time enough for both.

“Did you like it?” Mr White said, glancing over at him as they waited at a red stop light.

“Yeah. It was good.” He paused, licked his lips that still tasted faintly of cherry chapstick, then said, “Really good,” as Mr White floored the gas pedal.


End file.
